Chinese bitcoin mining pool ViaBTC has announced that it will be shutting down its cloud mining contract market.

The announcement follows the ban on initial coin offering (ICO) related activities in the country imposed by the authorities last year. Soon after the announcement, ViaBTC said that it will halt trading by the end of September 2017, while its mining pool or cloud-based services will not be affected.

Last month, CoinDesk reported that ViaBTC is launching a new digital currency exchange based in the U.K.

However, in a release dated January 08, ViaBTC said:

“In order to control speculation and protect the interests of our investors, ViaBTC will officially close cloud mining Market (https://pool.viabtc.com/contract/market/) at UTC time 12:00 Jan 10th, 2018.

“Please finish all your cloud mining contract trading ASAP. Thank you all for your support.”

Earlier this month, reports that suggested that the central bank was seeking to curb bitcoin mining activities in the country. However, the reports were soon denied and sources familiar with the matter said that the government plans to withdraw the preferential policies on electricity prices, taxes, and land.